Scarface is a 1983 American crime drama directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone, with Al Pacino starring as Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who arrives in Miami during the Mariel boatlift and rises from street-level criminal to powerful drug lord. The film is a loose remake of the 1932 film of the same name, but shifts the story into the cocaine-fuelled world of early-1980s Miami. With Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia in key roles, Scarface became one of the most recognisable crime films of its era, known for its excess, violence, quotable dialogue and portrait of ambition turning into paranoia and self-destruction.
Although Scarface is inseparable from Miami in popular culture, much of the film was actually shot in California, with Los Angeles and the surrounding area standing in for large parts of South Florida. The production did film important material in Miami Beach, most famously the Sun Ray Apartments at 728 Ocean Drive, where the chainsaw scene takes place, and the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, used for one of the film’s most recognisable hotel settings. However, many of Tony Montana’s later worlds of money and power were created in California, including El Fureidis near Santa Barbara, used as Tony’s mansion, and other Los Angeles-area locations that doubled for Miami streets, clubs and interiors. This gives the film an interesting split identity: it is visually and culturally defined by Miami, Ocean Drive and the neon-soaked idea of South Florida excess, but much of its physical production was built through California locations and studio work.
Colony Hotel
Colony Hotel has appeared in productions including Miami Rhapsody, Dexter and Bad Boys for Life. It is also strongly connected to the Scarface.
CVS Miama Beach
In Scarface (1983), 728 Ocean Drive is used for the Sun Ray Apartments, now a CVS, where Tony Montana and Manny Ribera go to make a drug deal.
Fontainebleau Miami Beach
Fontainebleau Miami Beach appears in Goldfinger (1964), Scarface (1983), The Bodyguard (1992), Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988), and many more.
The Carlyle
The Carlyle has appeared in several productions, including Scarface (1983), Miami Vice, The Birdcage, Pronto, Random Hearts and Bad Boys II.
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